


Since You've Gone (I've Been Lost Without A Trace)

by helens78



Category: due South
Genre: Dark, Jealousy, M/M, Non Consensual, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-20
Updated: 2010-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-11 04:33:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/pseuds/helens78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A remix of spuffyduds's amazing story <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/107354">Used To Think I Knew You</a>.  It's been over between Ray and Fraser for months, and Fraser's really losing it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Since You've Gone (I've Been Lost Without A Trace)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Used to Think I Knew You](https://archiveofourown.org/works/107354) by [spuffyduds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spuffyduds/pseuds/spuffyduds). 



"We're thinking there's a Canadian connection on this one," Welsh says, and when Fraser doesn't respond, he adds, "and you want my honest opinion, Kowalski needs you."

Fraser blinks across the room, staring at the wall, phone cold and hard in his hand. "I'd be happy to be of assistance," he says. The words sound like they're coming from far away, from some other Benton Fraser, RCMP, who's just borrowing his body and has his own agenda.

Fraser--the real Fraser, the one who is actually sitting at this desk, actually holding the phone to his ear, does not want to be of assistance. Does not care if Ray needs him. Is seven weeks away from a transfer back to Inuvik, and doesn't want any more complications at the last moment.

But someone else has other plans, and when Welsh says, "Good. Then we'll see you tomorrow morning," that other Fraser comes up with a calm, polite goodbye and hangs up the phone.

* * *

Ray smells like cigarettes. It overwhelms most of the things Ray used to smell like--dark, worn leather from his jacket and his boots; Ivory soap; Right Guard spray deodorant; aftershave, if he bothered with it--if he even bothered to shave that morning. Sweat. Hair gel.

Now it's just Camels, and the scent makes Ray seem like a completely different person--the kind of person who'd look critically at Fraser for two seconds before saying nothing at all, who'd flinch away from any casual touch Fraser offers, who'd chew on his thumbnail and finally shrug and say "Fuck it, whatever, okay," when Fraser suggests breakfast before they get started on their workday.

Since Ray doesn't seem to have an opinion about where to eat breakfast, Fraser directs him to their old standby, Rudy's Deli and Pies. He gets pancakes. Ray gets an omelet. It's not until Fraser moves his leg and realizes Ray's knee isn't there to press up against that he realizes what he was after here, and he stares down at his plate for a few moments, finally cutting his pancakes into bite-sized pieces because there simply isn't anything else to do.

When the waitress--Joan, according to her nametag--comes over to refill their coffee mugs, she has a few extra sugar packets for Ray. "Noticed you like it sweet," she tells him. She isn't looking at Fraser at all. She sets down an extra tiny container of cream. "And milky."

Ray does that shift-slide-slouch thing, smiling up at her as if he's trying to invite her into his lap right here, at the diner, right in front of Fraser. Fraser stares at Ray's mouth, watches his lips make words--_fuck me, fuck me, fuck me_, Ray's mouth is saying, though the words he uses are somewhat more reserved.

Joan says something else, too, winking, walking away with a gait meant to draw Ray's eye--and it does, and Ray watches her every move until she disappears back into the kitchen. Ray turns back to Fraser, and at first he's smiling, a leftover bit of soaring ego from Joan's attention, but then his expression goes flat and shuttered and he sits up straight again.

"Oh, no. No. You do not get to do that."

There's an echo when Fraser speaks, his voice is coming from so far away. "Do what, Ray?"

"You do not get to break things off for some bullshit reasons that add up to 'I'm scared shitless I might end up happy' and then try to act like I shouldn't be getting any."

Leave it to Ray to remember things that way. Leave it to him to interpret things that way. Unlike Ray, Fraser needs more than occasional nights of fondling on couches punctuated with random standoffish gestures like bringing up Diefenbaker as an excuse to get Fraser out of his apartment overnight. _Don't you gotta walk the dog?_ Ray used to ask, and Fraser would go, feeling cheap and wondering if this was what it felt like to be behind glass, performing obscene acts for people who would disappear when they tired of sinking quarters into slots. He'd gotten tired of wondering when Ray would run out of quarters.

Ray hasn't changed, apparently, because to him this is still all about sex--the only thing he gives a damn about is Fraser getting in his way. "Are you?" Fraser asks.

He means for it to come out mildly, but there's still someone else powering the words, and Ray's immediate shift into defensiveness doesn't help any.

"Am I _what_?"

Well, put it on the table, then. "Getting any."

Ray gets that shocked, cold expression on his face, then flushes a very slight pink and snaps out, "None of your fucking business."

Enough; Fraser's finished with this conversation. Two can play at the disappearing game, and Fraser can leave money of his own and walk away, too.

* * *

It doesn't make him feel better.

There's a part of him that doesn't feel like he got his money's worth out of Ray; he put down cash, but didn't get to see the things he was looking for. He goes back to the Consulate and changes out of his uniform, keeping a firm grasp on the time all the way. Ten minutes for Ray to pull himself out of his sulk; less than ninety seconds for him to decide to ask Joan if she's busy tonight; if her shift is a standard one for that diner, she'll have two hours before she can leave.

He walks Diefenbaker, ignoring the way Diefenbaker growls and snarls at him.

"You're my wolf," he growls back. "You don't get to have an opinion on this."

He makes sure Diefenbaker's shut in the Consulate, all the windows and doors secured so Diefenbaker can't get out while he's gone, and then he takes the long way to Ray's apartment, sitting down on the steps of a building across the street where he's got a good view of the bedroom window. The curtains are drawn but not light-blocking; he can see the figures inside, shadowy, moving together in a rhythmic pattern--dancing, of course, dancing's always been one of Ray's best seduction techniques. Fraser fell for it more than once, let Ray unbutton his shirt and drag it off him while his cock rubbed up against Fraser's thighs, while he laid kisses on Fraser's mouth and chin and neck, Ray's pulse beating a promise under his skin in time with the music.

The figures disappear after a while, and much, much later the lights go off, too. Fraser waits for Joan to come back out, waits for a cab to pull up to the front door, waits for--waits. Waits. Waits.

Waits.

There's a pay phone just outside the deli a block away; when Fraser finally can't stand it a moment longer, he walks down the block to the pay phone. He still has quarters.

It takes Ray longer to answer the phone than Fraser expected, and when he finally picks up, he doesn't even say anything.

Fraser could hang up now, pretend this was a wrong number, but that would be a lie--_if you're going to do this, at least admit you're doing it_\--and so he murmurs out, "Hello, Ray."

Now Ray's listening; now Fraser has his attention. But his voice is hushed when he speaks, as if trying to avoid waking someone up. Waking _Joan_ up. "Jesus, Frase, what's wrong?"

Where to even _start_. Fraser closes his eyes and this time just waits; the far-away part of him will take over if he just gives it time.

"Having fun?" he asks. When Ray doesn't rise to that bait, he continues, "She's spending the whole night, apparently?"

Still no response from Ray; that faraway part of himself is more and more present, pushing the rest of him into the background. The bitterness washes the back of his throat like bile. "We waited weeks before I did that, as I recall."

"Because you kept saying you had to leave to walk Dief!" Ray whispers, and there he is again, rewriting history to suit his purposes. Of course it was Fraser who volunteered to leave. Of course it never hurt Fraser's feelings to walk home alone in the dark. Of course Fraser couldn't have minded, never minded, didn't have a heart tangled up in their mess of a relationship, too.

But something happens in Ray's throat, and he whispers, fiercely, "Wait, what--are you _watching my building?_"

_He says that like you don't have the right,_ says that other part of himself, but before he can go on to let it speak for him again, or perhaps apologize or say anything at all, Ray hisses, "That's fucking creepy. Cut it out."

There's a loud smack of plastic-against-plastic, and the connection dies, and Fraser stands there in the phone booth, clutching at the receiver in his hand, lips sealed shut and breath coming out hard through his nostrils, staring at nothing. Nothing.

* * *

Ray lives a full, exciting, well-rounded life. Ray does not want for activity. He goes to the gym. He goes to the laundromat. He buys occasional groceries, but more often he brings home takeout.

Fraser doesn't even have to work to check in on Ray now and again, because he remembers. Because this was his life, too, once. Because it is patently unfair of Ray to determine that, just because their relationship amounted to nothing--_and whose fault was that_\--Fraser should have to give up the few things in Chicago that actually bring him pleasure.

"You just missed Ray," says the man at the Chinese place on Racine, the hot dog vendor outside Wrigley Field, the other waitress at Rudy's, the guys at the gym. "You two on different schedules now or something?"

"Yes, I'm afraid our work schedules have been incompatible lately," Fraser says, which isn't untrue: it's simply one of any number of _incompatibilities_ they're left with. "But I'm sure I'll see him again soon. I'll tell him you said hello."

Sometimes Ray doesn't go to the usual places, though, and Fraser has to put more effort into (_keeping an eye on what's his_) staying informed. He follows Ray down to a gay dance club, something with ugly, colorful lighting and pounding rhythms and a clientele that says everything about what Ray wants to get out of his evening--men clutching at other men, grinding up against each other, taking each other to the back room or the bathroom or anywhere they can have a semblance of privacy.

It's all that ever mattered to Ray, really, and Fraser refuses to be surprised by it anymore. When he walks in, Ray's got his arms around another man, and he's smiling, laughing, and if Fraser's experience in this realm means anything, Ray's almost certainly erect by now, his erection swelled and pressed insistently against his partner's groin.

But Ray stops dancing when he sees Fraser, and for one moment--one painful, heated moment, when the dim lights flash green and yellow across Ray's face--Fraser can almost believe that it's because Fraser's the best thing he's seen in this bar all night, and he's going to leave the man he's with and walk up to Fraser and offer him a drink, or a _fuck_ in a bathroom stall, and Fraser--Fraser would take that, would take even that, anything as long as it's because Ray still--still...

By the time Ray makes it through the crowd, Fraser's leaning up against a wall, waiting, heart pounding in his chest. But when he gets there, when Fraser can really _see_ Ray, Ray's expression is full of sympathy and patience and wariness, and Fraser goes cold again, cold while the other half of him says _It's all right, Ben; I can handle this._

Ray has to raise his voice to be heard over the music. "Hey," he half-yells. "You gotta cut this out, okay? It's not doing either of us any good."

It's exactly what he expected, with that look on Ray's face, and Fraser nearly shivers from feeling so cold inside, but he's talking anyway, talking from kilometers and kilometers away. "I'm not conversant with every nuance of American law, of course--" and oh, Ray's eyebrows have shot up into his hairline, and Fraser feels a vicious thrill of satisfaction at that, "but I was under the impression that it was a free country. So perhaps, Ray, we can both carry on with what we came here to do." Ray's mouth is hanging open, slightly, and Fraser thinks about that mouth, thinks about what Ray came here to _do_ with that mouth, and the ice solidifies in his voice; he's almost shaking with anger now. "I will have a few sips of a no-doubt execrable beer, and you can be a fucking _slut_."

If anything, Ray's mouth drops open a little more, and he swallows, slides his tongue out over his lips. Fraser's eyes narrow--_was that what you wanted all along, Ray? Did you want me to 'call it like I saw it'? Tell you what I saw in you all those times we were together?_

Maybe it is, because Ray comes closer, and now his voice is softer, gentler. "Seriously," he says. "This is fucking with me too, okay? This sucks--"

And, God, that's all he's wanted, that's all he's needed, just some acknowledgement from Ray that it _hurt_, that they were in it _together_, that--

"--but right now, Fraser, you are being a whack job, you are _not okay_, and you need to go home, all right?"

_Oh, the hell with you._ Fraser doesn't know why he bothered; Ray's still telling him how he feels, still claiming to know what Fraser needs, still saying it's all Fraser's problem, that Ray's fine, he's _fine_\--still _wrong, wrong, wrong_, and Fraser doesn't have to listen to it now. He slams into Ray's shoulder as he pushes away from the wall, and then he's muscling his way through the crowd and leaving, leaving, getting out of that place with its smell of sin and sex and cigarettes and _Ray_, damn it, Ray's sweat already hot on his skin. Damn him.

He gets all the way out to the street, all the way to the end of the block, and then he's turning on his heel, going back to the bar, hesitating outside and wondering exactly how long it'll take Ray to end up entangled with someone now that Fraser's out of sight. Five minutes? Ten?

He gives it ten, just to be certain, and when he goes back inside Ray's just heading off with another man, one with dreadlocks and excellent shoulders--all the qualifications Ray needs for an assignation, apparently. He follows them from a distance, which isn't difficult; the man with the dreadlocks is a little taller than most people in the crowd, and Fraser knows where they're going anyway.

He hesitates outside the bathroom, one hand stretched out and pressed against the door. _You could stop_, he thinks. _Just stop and go home, and let him do whatever degrading things he needs to do to himself._

But his mind fills with all the images of what Ray might be doing--might be doing at this very moment--and then he's slamming into the bathroom, grabbing Ray's partner-of-the-moment by the shirt and jerking him off Ray.

"Get. Out," he says, and he doesn't recognize his own voice at first, not until he realizes it _isn't_ his, it's that other voice, that other _self_, and it's just as well--what would he have said to Ray here? Would there really have been anything left to say?

The man with the dreadlocks puts his hands up, backing off, but he looks at Ray with concern on his face, which--how _dare_ he. He doesn't even know Ray, doesn't care about him, doesn't love him, hasn't spent the last four months alone in the camp cot that passes for his bed, trying to think of anything he could have done to change things--

"You need reinforcements here, or you two, uh, know each other?"

"I used to know him," Ray says, and it hits like a fist to the gut; hits Fraser right where he's still raw and open. But the other man's leaving now, and Fraser looks over at Ray, whose lips are swollen and whose pants are open and whose belt is flapping down at his hip, all-too-obvious evidence of what he was here for, what he wanted from the night.

Ray opens his mouth to say something, but it doesn't matter anymore. "Your _belt_," Fraser snarls at him, and Ray looks down at himself, reaching for it, but no. No. It's too late; he's going to get what he came here for, they're _both_ going to get what they came here for, and Fraser grabs at Ray's belt, getting it off him, tossing it aside.

"What the _fuck_," Ray says. He tries to step around Fraser, but Fraser's ready for that, ready for Ray's tricks and feints, and he shoves Ray up against the sink and buries his hand in Ray's hair, whole body pressed up to Ray's just like the other man's was a few moments ago.

He wonders what this feels like to Ray, how his body's different, if it makes any difference at all. The hardness pressing up against Ray's thigh isn't some stranger's now, it's Fraser's--it ought to be familiar, ought to remind him of what they used to be together, and to Fraser that would make a difference, but to Ray--who in God's name knows.

"You have red marks all up your neck," Fraser growls. He's tempted to lick them, to bite his own marks into Ray's skin. They _should_ be his, damn it--they should all be his, they should have been his all along. "Did you even know his name?"

That gets to him, just as Fraser knew it would; he's amazed Ray can look himself in the mirror sometimes. Ray struggles with Fraser's grip, saying, "Fraser, Jesus, get _off_ me," but Fraser's hands move to Ray's shirt and he drags him, bodily, across the floor of the bathroom and into one of the stalls, banging the door shut behind them.

Now they're alone; now there's no one to get between them, no one to stop them from having this out the way they've needed for four months. And maybe this is the part of Fraser Ray's needed all along; maybe if Fraser could have been this ruthless, this brutal, maybe it would have changed things. Maybe this Fraser could have said _no, Ray, I don't want to leave tonight_ or _Ray, please ask me to stay_ or _It's killing me to be without you, Ray, please forgive me, please let me come home_.

Or maybe all Ray ever wanted from Fraser was what they had for those precious few months: a warm body, a hard cock.

"What were you going to do?" Ray doesn't answer, and Fraser's voice starts echoing again, coming from that place, that faraway place where he doesn't even think about what he's saying before he says it. "Was he going to blow you? A total stranger? Right here?"

Ray's emotions are splattered all over his face, defiance and wariness in equal parts, and it heats Fraser's face at the same time it sends the blood rushing down between his legs. "Show me," Fraser snarls at him.

The defiance goes loose for a moment, replaced with confusion. "What?"

"What you were going to let him do to you. What you'd let _anybody_ do to you, apparently. Show me."

And suddenly Fraser realizes: _No._ He is not going to his knees in this place, he's not going to be Ray's stranger, he's not going to be the one who gets _used_ in this relationship anymore, not now that the relationship's over and Ray's fucking everything that moves, everything that'll let him. It's Ray's turn to bend and maybe break from it, so Fraser pushes Ray to the floor, gets him on his knees despite Ray's yelps of "_Ow_," and "Fraser, _fuck_, what are you," and then Fraser stops being oblique about things and undoes his own belt, unzips his jeans.

Ray's playing hard-to-get now, all coyness and "Fraser, you don't wanna do this, buddy," which is absurd, of course, and Fraser shows Ray just how absurd he's being by pushing his pants down and pulling his cock out. He's hard; he's even leaking, because it's _Ray_, because Ray always has that effect on him no matter how badly he's hurting Fraser at any given moment.

Don't want to do this? The hell he doesn't want to do this. And he doesn't believe that guarded look on Ray's face, not for a moment; he grips Ray's jaw with one hand and presses hard against the temporomandibular joint with his thumb. "What do you care," he hisses. "You'd do it for anybody, anybody who'd let you, no wonder you were so _good_ at it."

There's a split-second of hesitation, Fraser standing there with Ray's jaw in one hand and his own cock in the other, blood pounding in his temples, and then Ray opens his mouth, and _yes, yes, thank God, home, here, now, yes--_he's buried in Ray's mouth and groaning through the pleasure of it, letting Ray go so he can brace himself against the stall and lose himself in it.

_Use him_, says the voice that's been speaking through his lips all this time. _Just fuck him. Use him. He's yours; make him fucking _remember_ that--_

He goes over with a low, choked grunt, filling Ray's mouth with his seed, and when it's too much for Ray and Ray starts to choke, Fraser backs off, easing his cock out of Ray's mouth.

This is it, now; now Ray comes up, now he puts his arms around Fraser, now he holds him tight and whispers _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, come home with me, I'm sorry_\--

\--now he's pushing away and slumping down in the corner, putting his arms around his knees, coughing Fraser's come out of his throat.

It isn't supposed to be happening that way, and for several seconds Fraser doesn't know what to do.

Finally he zips his pants back up and crouches down beside Ray, looking at him--really looking at him, seeing past the fog of his own anger and actually taking in the way Ray looks, the way he _really_ looks, the way he--God, God, _oh, God, Ray._

"Ray..."

Ray doesn't move; if anything, he tucks his head further against his knees. Fraser tastes ash in the back of his throat and reaches out, carefully, like Ray might dissipate into smoke if he makes contact.

"My _God_, Ray, I don't know what I--" He swallows and blinks away the sting in his eyes. _I don't know what I just did. Help me._ "I'm so sorry, I--"

He touches Ray's shoulder, and it's like he feared: Ray startles backward, pushes himself further into the corner.

Fraser waits it out; this isn't what--this isn't how it--_this shouldn't be happening_, and if he just stops, if he just waits, if he's just patient...

Ray's speaking, very softly, to the floor now. "I think you need to go home."

For just a moment, Fraser thinks he's actually going to throw up; he feels his stomach turn over, and he takes a deep breath. Given where he is, that doesn't help.

_I think you need to go home._ It's like every time they finished a night of sex in Ray's apartment, only back then Ray didn't say it so baldly.

He covers it, though--he can cover how much that hurts, he can ignore it, he can push it down where it doesn't matter and deal with what's in front of him right now. "I can't just go to the Consulate and leave you like this."

Ray laughs. "I meant Canada."

Fraser hears a rushing sound in his ears, feels very far away all over again. His heart aches so much his chest feels tight, bruised, and he stands up and pushes out of the stall, out of the bathroom, gets through the crowd and steps out into the darkness and he's halfway down the block before he realizes where he's going, that he isn't headed for the Consulate at all.

* * *

There are a few people in the halls of the 27th precinct, but in the dead of night none of the detectives or civilian aides are there. It doesn't matter. Fraser takes a chair over to Welsh's office and waits, head in his hands.

Welsh is the first person into the office, early in the morning, and he stops in front of Fraser, coffee and cruller and newspaper in his hand. "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

Fraser looks up at him. "No, sir, I don't think you are."

"Come in."

Fraser walks into Welsh's office and waits until Welsh shuts the door. He sits down when he's directed to, feeling numb all over, but when he starts talking, it's _his_ voice, _his_ words: everything's coming from right here.

"I'm waiving my right to remain silent and my right to have an attorney present while talking to you," he says, firmly, and Welsh rubs a hand across his face as Fraser starts to talk.

_-end-_


End file.
